Charming, in its Own Way
by bisexualcharliedavis
Summary: Charlie gives Matthew a valentine.


A/N: shout out to all the people whove been posting Charlie/Matthew stuff lately over on A03...Happy valentines day, fandom!

Matthew would be the first to admit that he's not big on holiday celebrations of any variety. Most of them, at least as far as he was concerned, led to a spike in themed murders and Valentines day was the worst of them all. He'd spent most of the day working through his paperwork for their most recent double murder, a man and a woman. The working theory was that the man's wife had killed them both and fled the state with her twelve hour headstart. It was exhausting work. Quite frankly, he'd been quite satisfied to come home to the special edition of Game of Champions.

Perhaps more accurately, he was satisfied to come home and watch the special edition of Game of Champions with Charlie. Usually, they spent most of their time together at work but his second in command was being bullied into staying home by Jean was was worried his mild case would develop into pneumonia. They both knew it was ridiculous and Charlie was probably fine to be at work but if it made Jean that concerned then it was for the best for him to take an afternoon off. But only one afternoon; he was expected back at six thirty am tomorrow on the dot to be briefed on the case at hand.

"Happy Valentines day, Boss," Charlie said, as he appeared in Matthew's field of view. "This is for you." He continued, undaunted by the look of surprise Matthew could feel plastered on his face at being pulled from his thoughts a full fifteen minutes before Game of Champions was due to begin. He accepted the suspiciously heavy box from his detective and frowned at him.

"I didn't know that we were going to celebrate." The look on Charlie's face, his drawn in eyebrows and pursed lips indicated he was alone on that. He didn't have a proper name for their relationship, at least, not one they could agree on. Hell, he didn't even know if it was properly a relationship. It was...Just them. Naming it would spoil the whole thing in his opinion. He'd thought Charlie was on the same page. He probably was, which is why he was doing this now, when they were alone.

"Well...Open it anyway. Consider it a random gift, then."

"What's in it?" He asked, shaking it.

"Be gentle!" Charlie exclaimed, shrilley, "It's fragile."

"I see." He said, sliding one finger under the large gaudy bow Charlie had seen fit to tie the plain brown box in. He dropped the ribbon onto the couch and then dug his nails into the gap in the cardboard and lifted the lid.

He upturned the box onto the palm of his hand to reveal it's contents. In broadest terms, it was a teacup. An extremely wonky teacup, with no handle. Upon closer inspection, he did see little sharp bits where there may have been handles once. It was painted white in a splotchy bottom coat and had a picture of the group of them stuck to the front with some kind of shiny varnish.

Evidently, it was handmade.

"Uh, thanks." He said, not wanting to hurt Charlie's feelings. Obviously, it must matter to him if the other had taken the time to gift wrap it it for him.

"It's still wet on the bottom so be careful." Matthew looked down and noticed a smudge of black paint on his hand. He turned the cup up to see a smudged and now unreadable inscription on the bottom.

"Did you make this?" He asked, finally.

"Yeah. Ever since Rose started hanging out with that Greenslade woman she's been taking all these art courses. She dragged me along to a pottery one. I made that." He did know that Rose had been going out a lot recently, but he hadn't known it was her art. He'd honestly thought that the paintings in the living room were done by Mrs Blake the former on a really bad day or perhaps with a broken arm.

"For me?"

"Well, I tried. It's kind of terrible. I thought it might make you laugh anyway."

Matthew had already suspected Charlie hadn't an artistic bone in his entire body, and this was the nail in the coffin. Even so, the ugly little thing had a bit of charm to it. No one had ever taken the time to make him something like that before.

"Well, I didn't want to laugh out loud in case I hurt your feelings."

"That's much kinder than your niece was about it. She laughed so hard that her shandy came out of her nose."

Now that's a mental image that almost makes him chuckle.

"Well, it's...The thought that counts."

"I got you a real gift too." Charlie assured him, producing a cigarette box sized packet of chocolates from his pants pocket. They were still cold from the fridge, and the logo had a number of little hearts on it. He also noticed it was milk chocolate, the only sort he enjoyed. "You can throw that little monstrosity out."

"I don't think I will." Matthew said, indicating Charlie should join him on the seat. Charlie did. "It's charming. I might put it on my desk and keep pencils in it."

"And what will you say when someone asks why you have an ugly lump of clay on your table?"

"I will say that my lovely niece made it for me when she was seven."

"Ouch." Charlie replied, "And here I thought I was the next David Davies."

"I think he was a painter."

"Know it all." He grumbled, but didn't move. When Matthew offered him a piece of chocolate he took it. As he settled in for the long haul, Matthew found he couldn't keep his mind on the television. It was focused on two other things. One, what he was going to get for Charlie, and two, the weight on his shoulder where his colleague had fallen asleep.

By the end of the show, he still wasn't sure what he was going to do, but he was sure it could wait for the morning. For now, he just wanted to relax, with Charlie. He realized that for the first time in a while, life was good.


End file.
